Pizza Pick Me Up

     After Monday and Tuesday last week I was really not in the mood to deal with a failed dinner idea. I was a bit punky, my daughter was a bit punky... we really just needed something to cheer us up. I tossed around a couple of ideas in my head but had no clear idea of what I wanted going to make when I walked into Trader Joe's after my Wednesday workout. 

     I knew I couldn't spend too much time browsing the shelves since I had to get home to Mom. Two days after surgery and I left her alone... after making sure she had her coffee, breakfast, and whatnot. Still, didn't want to leave her hanging. Anyway, I usually find my dinner ideas come together fastest if I pick out my 'protein' first, so I head to the vegetarian/vegan area and browse their selection.

     Nothing really struck a cord with me this time though. I was just... stuck. Reluctantly I pick up a pack of extra firm tofu. I have a few recipes waiting for me to try that guarantee the enjoyment of even non-tofu eaters. Okay... I guess I'll try one of those? I don't know. I was really not feeling the healthy eating thing. Tofu in hand I browse the rest of the produce section hoping to find some real inspiration and fast. Five minutes later and still not feeling anything except the need to use the restroom, I put the tofu back on the shelf  and take a quick pit stop.

     It's on the way out I finally see something that inspires me... pizza dough! Three varieties even! I briefly consider the whole wheat one, then decide on garlic herb. Pizza sauce is even conviently right next to the dough so I didn't have to waste time trying to find it. Dough and sauce in hand I look at everything in a new light. Wasn't there a ground veggie protein kinda like ground beef? Yep! Onions, peppers, and mushrooms round out my veggies. I even have three different bags of grated cheese at home that I should use up, so that's perfect. I grab a particularly beautiful bouquet of roses for Mom to cheer her up, and check out excited for dinner again. Pizza may not be exactly healthy, but for as far as pizzas go... this one is healthier than the usual pepperoni/meat lovers/what have you that I would have normally had.

All the makings for pizza and all from Trader Joe's

     Making dinner from there was a snap. I browned the 'meat', chopped my veggies then added them to the mixture, stretched my crust out, topped, baked, and enjoyed. Tell you what, having pre-made dough was awesome. I have yet to find a recipe that I'm happy with, so I didn't have to fight with that and start dinner hours ahead of time just so we could eat at a decent hour. Just pull it from the fridge a few minutes before you want to start and viola!

     My daughter was fairly thrilled to be having something so close to 'normal' food this time. It was familiar looking and she has yet to meet a pizza she hated. She was optimistic throughout the prep and cooking periods saying things like "Smells soooo good", "I can't believe I'm having pizza tonight!", and "Can I try some of that now?" I tease her a bit and tell her she has to wait until it's all done, no previews available tonight.

Can you smell the browning cheese?

     As dinner comes out of the oven she excited jumps up from the floor where she's watching tv/doing homework/coloring and sits at the table with a huge smile on her face. I cut her about an eighth of the pizza, and join her with two slices for myself. I even had a little extra sauce heated up for dipping the crust into between us. After giving it a minute to cool she takes her first bite and... doesn't like it. Puts it on the plate, shakes her head no, makes an 'unt uhh' noise, crosses her arms and learns away from the table. My heart just about sinks... I couldn't believe I made something she didn't want to eat, again.

     Perhaps a bit delusional at this point, after playing nurse, cleaning house... ya know, doing the whole responsible Mom thing, I ask her to take another bite and reconsider her opinion. She does and isn't much more thrilled. Well, it's dinner anyway so she has to finish her slice. I cut it into pieces so she can countdown how many more bites she has and (somewhat less) happily eat mine. I think it's great by the way. I had to remind myself not to eat any more than those two slices. I could have easily eaten half that pizza.

     A sneak peek over to my daughter's plate reveals that dinner is disappearing quite quickly for a girl that gave me that reaction to her first bite. Usually I have to bargain dessert options when that happens.. not this time though. She ate her whole slice without even a sigh of discontentment. And then something truly surprising comes out of her mouth, "Mom, can I have another piece?" What the what?! Wait up... hold the phone... this is out of left field. She didn't like it. She almost refused to eat it after just the first bite! Now she's asking for more? I don't even know... but I'll take it. I do deny her a second piece though. Not to be mean, but because she was asking about dessert before dinner and that question was just waiting to be asked again. I tell her I'd give her a second piece, but then she might not have room for her two cookies. Totally not true, she could easily have eaten another slice and then two cookies. But she doesn't know that ;-) silly mom trick I've picked up... make them think they need room for dessert so they don't overeat dinner and then add dessert to the calorie count.

     Anyway, her final thumb rating came in at "All the thumbs up in the whole world" so without stopping to examine too much into the change of heart, I put this down in the win column. She loved the leftovers just as much as she ended up loving the first go around.

A Couple Rough Days

     Monday presented an especially tough challenge for me... It was vegetarian day, but my mom really wanted chicken casserole for dinner. On any other day my parent's dietary habits are of little concern to my own, but on Monday my Mom had outpatient surgery and I wanted to make her something comforting. So I set out to get what I needed to make Betty Crocker's Chicken Rice Casserole and to make myself something as well.

Tasty!

     Having made plenty of casseroles in my 26 years, I figured a simple salad for myself and a casserole for everyone else was going to be about the extent of the work I felt like doing for dinner. And maybe I was feeling a bit bummed that I wasn't having casserole too.... because I really like casserole. So pitty party salad for me. Though, I make an awesome salad in my opinion. It's made with baby greens, carrots, peppers, cucumbers (not pictured), dried cranberries, mozzarella cheese, and sweet and spicy nuts. I eat it without any dressing, I just don't think it needs it.

     The casserole was fairly easy to make, basic direction following. The biggest challenge was to not taste it as I went. I work as a chef, we're trained to taste everything. But I promise I didn't taste anything.... until Tuesday, yay for leftovers! But damn is it hard to watch everyone else eat something you wish you could. But I did it!

    Then Tuesday rolled around. I was free to eat my yummy casserole! Yay! And it was my turn to make snack for my daughter's Girl Scout troop. I like making snacks for my daughter, so this should be no big deal deal, right? I even enlisted my daughter to help. She put the berries and granola in and I piped the yogurt in.

Even good the next day for breakfast

     The big deal is, I didn't take into account how other parents feed their children. I made yogurt parfaits, a nice healthy but kid friendly sort of thing. Low fat vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, and granola are apparently not on these girls radars. To say they didn't like their snack is an understatement. I think my daughter is the only one who ate her snack. The rest didn't even try theirs. One girl even made a snide comment about the middle looking like puke, which was quickly the new funny thing for all the other girls to repeat.

     I think this whole thing bothered me for several reasons. The first is that my daughter's (and my own) feelings were hurt. She put thought and love into making these for her friends and they turned up their noses at her efforts. Secondly, as far as snacks go, while not expensive, these cost more than an off the shelf junk food item and to see them uneaten in the trash was hard. Thirdly, I'm mad that the troop leader or her assistant didn't say anything to stop the rude comments. One girl may be able to slip a rude remark in, but it certainly shouldn't be repeated by all the other girls as well. Fourthly, it turns out another troop (older) troop made a cake and brought it in for everyone. So even after misbehaving, the girls were rewarded with huge pieces of cake. My daughter on the other hand, asked for only a small piece just to feel included. And finally, I didn't get a thank you.

     But, to focus on the positives... My daughter is awesome. She insists that we bring a healthy snack again, because she likes how she feels after eating healthy food. She didn't give in to her peers and ate her snack because she liked it and wasn't going to let them tell her what to like. She also, on her own, decided that she'd probably had enough to eat that night and didn't pig out on cake. And finally, when I joked about bringing carrot sticks next time, she fires back, "Mom, I don't think those girls eat carrots. Like ever."

My First Guest Reviewer - Red Beans and Rice

     A few weeks ago I had a friend coming over to hang out on a Wednesday. He's been following my blog, so he knew he was taking a chance by coming on a vegetarian night and I was a bit nervous cooking for someone besides my daughter when I'm still obviously struggling through this vegetarian thing. I've been getting more hits than misses (in my opinion, not in my daughter's) but every once in while a dish will fail or need some tweaking. Nevertheless, I went out shopping after my training session to find something to inspire me.

     It is a very rare thing for me to go to Trader Joe's but everyone keeps telling me that I have to try their soy chorizo, so I went out to pick up a pack. After a bit of hunting around the store I leave with some soy chorizo and a new found love for that store. I'm going to have to make it a habit to bring my wallet to the gym so I can hit that place up after my workout. It's just a bit too far from my home otherwise especially with two chain stores within a mile from my house... yes I am that lazy when it come to grocery shopping.

     From TJ's I head home to figure out what the heck I'm going to make. I had no idea what kind of groceries I was sitting on at that point so I wanted to do an inventory before picking anything else up. Turns out I had a whole lot of not much. A little bit of brown rice, some risotto rice... that's about it. My cooking habits tend to leave little in the way of partial anything. So I do a quick search on vegetarian red bean recipes   and hit up my local store to get the rest of dinner.

     Turns out 'good' red beans take a day or more to make, what with soaking the beans and all. I cheated and bought a couple of cans instead. Though, come to find out a few brands add bacon without putting that information on the front. Good thing I've been a label reader for the past year plus, otherwise I might have accidentally ate bacon (mmmm... it would be a tasty accident though). Also grabbed a can of crushed tomatoes and the holy trinity of veggies (onion, green pepper, celery). Then it was some to get started on a dish that I should have started hours ago.

     I didn't follow a recipe when it came to the actual making of the red beans. Just kinda took the veggies, sauteed them up with some garlic, mixed them with the beans and tomatoes, then put the whole mix into a large casserole dish and into the oven at 300 to let it simmer until dinner. The whole point is to cook the beans until they start to break apart. Mine just didn't have that sort of time though. Next time. Maybe.

    The chorizo itself was a bit weird to work with. I've never worked with a sausage type meat that didn't either hold its shape or have an edible casing. This stuff has to be removed from its plastic casing and then just falls apart to a ground meat like appearance. As I said, strange. I was kind of hoping to have slices of meat-like goodness, oh well.

Looks like dinner to me

     As I'm cooking, my friend arrives and is quite eager to try out what I made fore dinner. Turns out he is a huge fan of chorizo and is quite curious about this impostor. With a stroke of luck (and some mad kitchen skills) my rice finishes up at the same time as the chorizo and dinner is ready. We all layer our bowls with proportions we find pleasing, toss some cheese on top, and dig in.

     Individually, everything was pretty good. As I said, maybe the red beans could have cooked longer, but they tasted pretty good. The chorizo was spicy and very meat like, I'm sure it would fool an unsuspecting taste tester. Mixed all together with a bite of everything though, and this dish was awesome. Thumbs up from me, thumbs up from my friend, and an almost up thumb from my daughter. It was a bit spicy for her. 

     This is one dish that I happily ate away at the leftovers for a few days. I even ended up sharing some with my Dad, and he liked it as well. Though, by that point the dish had morphed slightly. I had mixed everything together and added a can of crushed tomatoes to help cut down on the spice. So it was maybe a bit more chili like by that point. Which my Dad is a fan of for sure. Even though I just fished this dish off a few days ago I'm considering a similar dish for the upcoming Superbowl... even though it isn't on a Monday or Wednesday. That's how much I like this meal.

Mini Veggie Lasagnas - And a Guest Cook

     Over the last few weeks it seems that vegetarian eating is taking up more days than I originally planned. I think I'm eating meat now only twice a week. And I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. Sure the bacon is always tempting me at work, but it's not unbearable. I'd wager that I've had one piece since the beginning of the year, a huge improvement from one piece a day.

     Usually days that I had planned to have off from my vegetarian diet are spent eating my vegetarian leftovers. One dish for lunch and another for dinner. I really need to work on batch sizes I think. Or maybe con my parents into eating meals with me more often. But tonight wasn't a leftover dinner. My daughter didn't have Girl Scouts and she was tired of last week's red beans and rice (that's a story I'll tell another time). So we had time to enjoy something new and I was dying to try something I found while random clicking through another blog that was suggested to me. By the way, check out Oh My Veggies sometime if you haven't already. So many ideas!

     Tonight I decided to try my hand at making Mini Veggie Lasagnas. They just look so cute! "But", a little voice warned me, "your daughter doesn't like vegetables." Then again, this poor girl has had a hard time finding much of anything she really liked since this new journey began. So I decided to try a slightly different tactic to the eat your dinner, get a cookie. 

     She is getting to the point she is very helpful in the kitchen, we bake together all the time, so maybe she could help make tonight's dinner. So I ran that idea by her and she was all for it. She helped me shop for the ingredients, to the point of picking the vegetables we were going to use. I did twist her arm a little for the zucchini, "Just a really little one?" I request. "Well, as long as it's a reeeeeeallllllly little one", she concedes. We also picked up a teeny onion, an orange pepper, four small mushrooms, and a bag of spinach to round out our veggies. She also wanted homemade alfredo sauce instead of red sauce or pesto, so we picked up those ingredients as well. Then it's back home to get to work.

Almost tastes like the real thing.

     I get to work making sauce and browning some mock sausage. I should add, this is an addition she was not happy about. She was ready to eat straight up veggie lasagna before risking another meat like product. She came around after I had her try a piece. "Pretty good!" was her verdict.

      The sauce was simple enough to make: 1 Tablespoon margarine, a small spoon of chopped garlic, 1/4 Cups flour, 3 Cups skim milk, salt and paper to taste, then about a cup of shredded Parmesan and some Romano I had laying around. Pretty tasty and lower in calories than anything from a jar. Less creamy though. But in a dish like this I don't think I would have noticed if I hadn't been tasting my sauce off the spoon.

     As I was busy on the stove, I handed my smallest chef's knife to my seven year old and had her cut all of the veggies. It's not her first time cutting anything, in case you were worried. She learned to cut with her Pop-Pop a while back. She wanted to be shown the best way to cut each veggie, but after an initial cut or two from me, the did the knife work. And a really good job of it too.

Chopping peppers

Mushrooms

And onions

Zucchini

     After that we put her vegetables in the skillet with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and more fresh garlic. As those cooked down I taught her the easy way to chop spinach. She then stood at the stove and stirred everything until the veggies were al dente. Turned off the heat, added the chopped spinach, put in about half of the Italian sausage, and set our eyes on assembly.

Looks good already

Chopping spinach by rolling the leaves first

Patiently stirring, and making a small mess

Final mix

     This stage was a little difficult for her, but she helped out for a little while. But it was a simple layering procedure, won ton wrapper, tablespoon of ricotta  tablespoon of veggie mix, tablespoon of sauce, repeat. On top we sprinkled some mozzarella and tossed our muffin pan into the oven at 350 for about 15 mins.

Part of the first layer

Oven ready

     As our lasagnas were in the oven we had a good chance to discuss making dinner tonight. Turns out she really enjoyed the whole process, even if it did mean we were eating dinner later than usual. Much later in fact. She has officially requested that she gets to cut our veggies from now on, and I think it's a great idea honestly. Maybe her involvement will make this all more pleasant for her, and it's never too early to learn good knife skills.

     About then the oven beeps and the moment of truth has arrived, will cooking dinner make eating dinner more enjoyable for her? This is certainly a meal with enough vegetables that she would have protested slightly if I just gave it to her. I give her one to start and watch her take her first bite.... "Mmmmmmmm!" She exclaims. As for her thumb rating? I mistakenly took it for two thumbs up at first. She corrected me though, it's "all the thumbs up, in the whole world". This dish is a winner and then some.

Make a batch for yourself tonight!

Tofu Take Two

     A few months back I had my first attempt at making tofu and it was a serious flop. I'd say that I probably didn't squeeze enough water out and maybe they could have used a bit more time crisping up. Live and learn, right? Sadly though, this incident will forever stay in my daughter's mind and effect her opinion on tofu.

Nothing fancy, but it sure works great!

     Nevertheless, I tried my hand at making a tofu dish again. This time I had some help though. Firstly, after reading this helpful guide I went out and bought a tofu press. I figure if I'm going to be making tofu more often I don't really want to have to buy a roll of paper towels every time. I also loosely followed this recipe. I left out the fruits at the end though since I was going to be putting my tofu on some veggie stir fry.

     The stir fry itself was made a bit off-the-cuff. Half an onion, half a pepper, a small bunch of broccoli, some aging but still good mushrooms, half a pack of snow peas, a can of baby corn, garlic, ginger, and a pack of Chinese style noodles found in the produce section of my grocery store. Seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce, and a little sesame garlic sauce. Yum!

My veggie mix for the night

     

     The tofu itself cooked up really well, nice and crispy on the edges, firm on the inside. About as meat like in texture as I think it could be. The sauce I picked had some kick, but not too much. I enjoyed it far more than my previous attempt.

     This time around the 'green things' weren't my daughter's concern, the tofu was. She ate away at the stir fry without complaint, but she consistently avoided the tofu on top. Though I didn't get an individual score from her, I'd guess it came in at not quite a thumb up, but more than a sideways thumb. When I was finally able to convince her to try the tofu... she didn't hate it. But she didn't like it either and she would have been happy to not have had to finish the mere two pieces I had given her. But she did finish it all without playing "let's make a deal". I do believe she had some cookies later on though. Mimi's are always good for cookies.

     As I said at the beginning of this post, I think her previous experience tainted her opinions. It may take a few more dishes like this to get her to have a positive view. For now I think the sideways thumb the tofu got was quite an accomplishment.

Even reheated two days later this dish is awesome in my book

Dinning Out

     As I have only recently decided to dive into the world of vegetarianism it's never occurred to me how difficult eating out may be. I was given a quick glimpse into that this past Wednesday though. I left the restaurant feeling like a bit of a failure... until I justified it. Then I was okay. Mostly.

     Normally my daughter and I have a 'Mommy & Daughter date' every Thursday night. We head to a chain  restaurant that is just over a mile from the house and have dinner. We've been there so frequently the hosts recognize us now. Anyway, this past week we had to change the day of our date night because I was scheduled to work a special function. We shuffled it up a day to make the next night more bearable for her. Unfortunately for me, this meant I was supposed to eat vegetarian.

     I didn't think it would be that hard, maybe get a veggie burger, a salad, or worst case a pasta dish. There was surely one dish, right? Unfortunately not. There was no mention of veggie burgers, plus every burger came with bacon too. Every salad had chicken. Every pasta dish came with shrimp or chicken. Even the 550  calories and under menu had meat on every dish. The only two vegetarian options came on the appetizer menu, fried green beads and bar pretzels. Great.

     I considered getting my usual dish, a salad, without the chicken. But I know (approximately) what a salad costs to make and without the chicken they would be making a really good profit margin off my dish. Everyone knows that the protein is the most expensive part of the dish. I just didn't feel right paying full price when about half the cost was missing. So... I gave up. I got my usual salad as is, with dressing on the side. My daughter happily was allowed to have her usual mini burgers and fries.

     As for my justification? I ate vegetarian Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday already. And I could do it again easily on Thursday, I would just pack my dinner for work. So surely those 'extra' days would make up for my failure on Wednesday right?

Redemption Through Revamp

     At this point I feel a bit trapped, I have a bowl of leftover tacos, a near full package of corn tortillas and  an unhappy 7 year old. I don't think any amount of bargain making could get her to eat those tortillas again. But I refuse to throw them out either, especially after reading this post. Wasting food has been a small problem in this household as well. Eating what I buy is a great goal to work towards. With these thoughts swirling in my mind I head to work Tuesday morning.

     I am lucky in a way that I work in the food industry at this point, I can easily get ideas from everyone around me. We discuss using the tortillas as 'noodles' in a taco lasagna dish. Cutting strips and frying them up to make a crunchy addition to a salad. Tortilla bowls. Tortilla soup. You name it, it was suggested.

     But, Tuesdays are a bit more crunched for time. I have to help my daughter get her homework done, get dinner on the table, and get out the door for Girl Scouts. I needed a low fuss, healthy, kid friendly solution. I finally settled on baked corn chips. No extra fat and it solves the texture issue she and I were having. And I've always been more of a crunchy taco/taco in a bowl person anyway.

     Turns out baked corn chips are really simple. Cut your tortillas into desired size, I like eighths personally. Lay them out on a couple sheet pans like so:

The spacing is the important part no chips on top of each other!

     And season as you wish. I chose two salt grinders that I got for Christmas from my brother.

A little spice for my tray, just salt and pepper for hers

     Bake in the oven at 400 until the edges are just turning brown , nine minutes in my oven, and tada!

Chips!

     I pull these out of the oven just as her bus drops her off at the door. "Mmmm... what's that Mom? It smells good." Small victory already!

     "Oh, I made chips out of those tortillas you didn't like last night. I don't think you want to try these." That last sentence had her jumping up and down begging to try one. After a small show of denying her, I 'cave' and let her try "just one". As she bites into her first chip I hear a little yum noise and the quickly the rest of the chip is gone. I finally win a round!

     Dinner is a few hours later and I serve up a small scoop of last night's tacos with 12 chips, equivalent to  one a half tortilla shells, and a sprinkle of cheese. This dinner was such a hit that she didn't even ask for dessert. And it looks so good you would hardly believe it was vegetarian.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

     I did only get one thumb up, but she also said it's a meal she would happily eat again. I would too, semi-homemade chips and all. As an added note, this was a very filling dinner, so if you decided to make this yourself maybe scoop a bit less then you normally would. You can always get seconds after all.